La Cucaracha by Lalo Alcaraz for April 15, 2010

That sounds about right - who else could afford to “caravan” around the country with way too much time on their hands. “Making Trouble” probably is their “RV’er Rally Theme”!

Don’t know about you but all my working life I paid 7.5% and so did my boss. So please tell me how the government is giving me your money. I realize they stole from Social Security many times to offset their shortages in other departments, but the money was there. Am I stealing from the bank when I take out the money I put in there? I don’t believe a tax dollar has been used, but please correct me if I’m wrong.

Funny thing, I thought seniors have traditionally been the largest political voting block. Why does this surprise you now?

Agreed Lewreader - but “Disability Checks” can be drawn before retirement. And not all “Disabilities” involve Physical Ailments… some of the TEA Partiers Act like their off their medication(s).

If all they’re living off is their SS Retirement, I’m thinkin those aren’t the ones who can “afford” to caravan around the country. Car pool maybe

“Joe” Apparently the results are mixed. Below is from today’s New York Times.

Poll Finds Tea Party Backers Wealthier and More Educated

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/us/politics/15poll.html?hp

I’m not sure what this says about wealth and education.

Lewreader,

I don’t know when you started working, but the combined FICA/Medicare contribution didn’t get to 7.51% (it’s now 7.65%) until 1988. See the chart at:

http://www.ssa.gov/history/pdf/t2a3.pdf

ROTTS Your right, maybe the rate wasn’t 7.5% when I started working but the market has earned 8% on an average.If the government hadn’t forced me to invest in Social Security and I had invested in an index, do you think I might be getting a slightly higher annuity? What did they invest our money in? Bonds for forty years? I think the WSJ would call that overly cautious.

Is that TP now encased in plaster? Pepe and Chepe have been trapped in it for quite a while.

The Tea Parties are for limited government, reduced taxes, the Constitution, and liberty. So what does that say about the people who find the Partyers (I can have spelling preferences too) so scary that they must misrepresent them all over the media?

Reflex: Exactly what is it you say the Tea Partyers are ignorant of? If that is supposed to be a thoughtful comment, you should be able to answer. If not, then you were apparently just name-calling.

As for Social Security, I draw it even though I consider the entire system immoral. The system taxed me for almost 50 years, and its advocates have always insisted that it is something I’ve paid for and deserve, and I’m holding them to it. It is they who are taking other people’s money, not me, and turning it down won’t bring down the system (although if it could, I would).

As for people complaining about taxes even after cuts, what is so hard about understanding that? The government lets me keep slightly more of my money and I should be grateful they don’t take more?

If government were restrained to the defense of rights, taxes would be a tiny fraction of what they are now. As for everything else that governments currently do, if it is something that someone should be doing, someone will. There is a large body of free-market history and economic theory that establishes that fact. But most people today are totally ignorant of such facts.